


This Walk Will Be Legend

by JungMichan



Series: Splintered Light: EXO Canon-AU Oneshots [4]
Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Accidents, Adventure, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bonding, Canon Universe, Concussions, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Idols, Injury, Leader Kim Junmyeon | Suho, Magical Realism, Major Character Injury, Male Friendship, Minor Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol, OT9 (EXO), Quests, gotta find the el dorado, sail sail sail gotta gotta go go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 09:34:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25967464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JungMichan/pseuds/JungMichan
Summary: One minute he's performing to a stadium filled with fans, and the next, he's waking up in the middle of an endless desert. Suho doesn't know how he got there, or what happened to the others, but he does know where he has to go.
Relationships: Kim Junmyeon | Suho & Park Chanyeol, Kim Junmyeon | Suho/Everyone
Series: Splintered Light: EXO Canon-AU Oneshots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2166735
Comments: 8
Kudos: 76





	This Walk Will Be Legend

Junmyeon sits bolt upright with a gasp so loud it rings in his ears. Bright light hits him like a blow to the face, and he squints painfully, raising a hand to his eyes to shade them. It is sunlight that’s dazzling him, he realizes after a few moments. Sunlight, but sunlight as he’s never experienced it before. It somehow seems to be coming from around him and below him as well as above. As his eyes adjust to the brightness, he becomes slowly able to see his surroundings. He lowers his shading hand and looks around.

 _What?_ The word drifts, small and bewildered, into a mind gone blank with confusion.

He is sitting on sand. Fine, white-gold, sun-baked sand, burning hot even through the fabric of his jeans. The sand stretches out in all directions as far his eyes can see, endless miles of rolling white dunes, patterned in ripples where the wind caresses them. The sky is a high, high bowl that stretches down around him to touch the horizon. It is such a pale blue it’s almost white, and the white sun glares fiercely in it. The heat bakes down through his hair, so powerful it feels like it’s burning his scalp, but for some reason, Junmyeon doesn’t feel hot at all. He isn’t sweating, though the air is scorchingly dry and shimmering with heat-waves. In fact, he is cold. He digs icy hands into the hot sand at his sides and shivers.

“What’s happened?” he asks aloud, and his voice is a small, lost sound in a vast world of emptiness.

“Where am I?”

***

Suho is surrounded by rows upon endless rows of glowing lightsticks, all jumping in rhythm, stretching high up into the darkness of the stadium as far as his eyes can see. The screaming is deafening, but he’s used to that. His earpiece pumps the backing track into his ear as he jumps and waves in time with the beat and the screaming fans. Endorphins race through his body as he sings and shouts to the crowd. He pours his heart and soul into every concert, and the fans pour the energy back. It’s an incredible feeling, indescribable, and he’s so high on it he feels like he could fly. He wouldn’t change this for the world.

“I say E-X, you say O!” he chants along with the other members, and the fans cry the chant back at them. “E-X-O! E-X-O!”

The stage thrums with energy, pulsing up through his feet. Suho makes his way down one of the long catwalks extending out across the stadium floor. Below him, the front row of fans are kept several metres clear from the stage edge by metal barriers and security guards. From the catwalk opposite Baekhyun waves to catch his attention, and when Suho makes eye contact the other singer tosses something small across the gap between the catwalks. Suho snatches the spinning phone out of the air with one hand to screams of adulation from the crowd. It is set up to broadcast live to the giant screen the size of a building at the back of the stage, so that the fans can see what they see. He points the camera back at Baekhyun and sees him flash up on the big screen behind him. He laughs and points the phone down at foot-level, panning across the excited faces of the front-row fans behind their metal barricade.

The beat changes into a faster, driving rhythm, thumping through his body. Suho spins around to see Chanyeol coming up the catwalk behind him. The rapper holds a microphone to his mouth and launches into a blazing rap, punctuated by bursts of light and coloured smoke all around. Suho holds the phone up, catching Chanyeol on the giant screen behind them. He slowly walks backwards as Chanyeol advances down the catwalk towards him, keeping his face in the frame. Chanyeol looks awesome. His deep red hair is styled up like an anime character, and although he’s wearing an intense expression to match the rap, Suho can see the fun sparkling in his eyes.

They’re pretty close together now, Suho still stepping backwards as Chanyeol raps into his phone screen. Coloured smoke explodes up on both sides of them, and lasers beam down through the smoke. Chanyeol is coming to the end of his rap. Suho focuses on the phone screen, watching Chanyeol through it, and at the same time he starts to think about the next part of the show, about the song that comes next and what position he needs to get into. 

Chanyeol’s rap falters and his face changes, mouth opening in sudden alarm, microphone dropping from his hand as he starts to reach out. Suho’s backward-stepping foot comes down, expecting to land on solid ground, and finds only empty air. He hasn’t a hope of saving himself, and Chanyeol is just far enough away that his sudden frantic lunge isn’t quite enough to reach him.

Suho falls. The fall only takes the space of a single heartbeat, but to Suho that heartbeat seems an eternity. He’s falling, falling, falling -

He hits the stadium floor three metres below with a blow so stunning it seems to momentarily drive him out of his own body. His head bounces off the concrete with an ugly crack and a starburst of agony explodes in the centre of his brain. The phone flies out of his suddenly nerveless hand. It bounces once, and shatters. For a moment, everything goes black.

Screaming. There’s darkness and there’s screaming, and it’s different screaming now. He hears the difference. Not excited screams anymore. Scared. These screams are scared.

Distantly, Suho knows what has happened. He has fallen off the stage, and now he is lying motionless on the ground beneath it, like he’s dead, or at least badly hurt. No wonder the poor fans are screaming. He has to get up. He has to let them know he’s okay. And he will. He will. He just needs a second.

The blackness crowding his vision recedes a little, and high above him he sees Chanyeol. The rapper is crouching at the edge of the stage and staring down at him. Suho tries to focus on his face, but suddenly Chanyeol is leaping down, dropping the three metres to land in a crouch on the stadium floor. Suho tries to sit up, but Chanyeol goes to his knees beside him and holds his shoulders to the ground.

“No, hyung. Don’t move.”

Chanyeol has gone dead white and his eyes are like dark holes in his face. Suho wants to tell Chanyeol not to look so scared, to let him sit up and show the fans he’s okay, but suddenly there are more people everywhere, dozens it seems, all crowding around him, blocking him from view of the crowd. He sees the black uniforms of security guards, the orange vests of the event medics, and then everything starts to go blurred and confused. Medics take over from Chanyeol, holding his shoulders down, and Chanyeol grabs his hand instead.

Suho wants to say something, anything, but somehow he can’t quite find his way to his mouth. Instead he squeezes Chanyeol’s hand. _I’m okay_ , he tries to make the squeeze say. _Don’t look so scared. I’ll be fine. Just give me a second._

***

Well, he’s not going to find out what’s happened by just sitting here in the middle of the endless desert and staring.

Junmyeon gets to his feet and brushes white sand from his jeans. It’s so fine it’s almost powder. It leaves behind a pale dust that coats his skin and makes it sparkle. There’s mica in the sand, he thinks, or quartz, perhaps. Tiny crystals that reflect the sunlight. He turns around in a circle, searching for anything, anything that looks familiar, any clue that might help him figure out where he is and how the hell he got here.

He thinks they were going somewhere. Yes, that feels right. They were going somewhere, him and all the others. It was going to be a long journey, long and hard, but it would be okay because they were together. But they are not together now. Where are the others? Why is he all alone here in this strange, empty, endless white desert?

A distant strain of music reaches him, like the echo of a memory, and it brings words with it, and the association clicks.

_El Dorado._

That’s right. They were going to El Dorado.

***

There is music all around him. Suho hears Kyungsoo’s voice lift up and soar, clear and powerful as always. Yes, their next song, that’s right. They have to keep the show going. Chanyeol shouldn’t be down here with him on the cold, dark floor beneath the stage. He should be up there with the others. The show must go on. That’s the rule, that’s always the rule. No matter what happens, the show must go on. Suho should be up there too, he knows he should be. And he will be. Maybe he won’t quite make it for this song, but the next song for sure.

 _I just need a second_ , he tries to make his voice say. His lips move this time, he thinks. Is he speaking? Maybe. It’s too loud with screams and music to tell.

“Hyung?” Chanyeol’s distraught face is breaking Suho’s heart. The young rapper leans in closer. “Are you okay? Can you hear me? Oh, hyung…”

The medics are doing something to him but Suho ignores them.

“Chanyeol...” His own voice sounds weirdly distant.

“Yes, yes hyung, I’m here.”

“Go...get back on…”

Chanyeol shakes his head. His lips set into a stubborn line in his white face.

“No! I’m not leaving you.”

“They need you...”

“You need me more,” Chanyeol says fiercely. Suho closes his eyes. Chanyeol is going to get in trouble if he doesn’t get back on stage soon. One member down isn’t so bad, and it’s only Suho, he’s not all that important, they can manage without him. But losing Chanyeol too will put too much strain on the others. Chanyeol is the main rapper, he has so many lines. EXO needs him.

“Hey, kid, stay with us,” a different voice says firmly. Slowly, Suho opens his eyes again. It’s harder to do than it should be. The voice belongs to one of the medics, an older man with hair greying at the temples and a calm, professional voice. “I need you to keep your eyes open, okay?”

“Hyung,” Chanyeol is nearly crying. Suho can hear it in his voice.

“I’m okay,” he mumbles. “Don’t worry ‘bout me…”

His eyes are just so heavy. It’s so hard to keep them open. They’re trying to close of their own accord, and he has little power to stop them.

“What is his name? His real name?” the medic asks Chanyeol.

“Junmyeon. Kim Junmyeon.”

“Junmyeon, you still with me?”

“Yeah,” Suho manages.

“Open your eyes for me, Junmyeon,” the medic commands again. Suho tries, he really tries. He wants to do as he’s told. He almost cries with the effort of it, but he manages to open his eyes again.

“Tired…” he whispers. Everything is going strange and dim. There’s a sharp pain growing behind his eye. His eyes want to close. He wants to sleep.

But no. The concert. The next song. He was going to get back onstage for the next song. His vision begins to twitch, and he starts to shake. How could he forget something like that? He needs to be on stage. He’ll ruin the concert. 

“Chanyeol,” he cries suddenly. “The next song!”

“It’s okay,” Chanyeol says tearfully. “You don’t have to do it.”

“No, I h-have to -” he’s shaking so much his teeth are knocking together, and he’s cold. He’s so cold. Fear rises up inside him, and his breathing goes too fast and too shallow.

“It’s okay, Junmyeon.” It’s the medic again, voice just as calm as before. “It’s just the shock. It’s the adrenaline flooding your system. It happens when you have an accident like that, but it’s okay, you’ll be fine. Hey, you’re still listening to me, right?”

Dimly Suho understands that the medic is talking to keep him from giving in to the dragging sleep that’s trying to pull him away from the panic and the rising pain behind his eye. He tries to stop shivering and gasping. He tries to answer. He wants to tell the medic that he understands and that he’ll stay awake, and he wants to tell Chanyeol not to worry, that he’ll get a grip any moment now and he’ll be back onstage for the next song, but he’s lost the way to his voice again.

The medic continues. “Tell you what, Junmyeon, you’re going to have a hell of a headache but you’re going to be fine, you just stay still and stay awake for me, and you’ll be fine, right? Right, Junmyeon?”

Why are they calling him that? It’s a concert, he’s performing. He needs to be Suho right now, not Junmyeon. He tries to tell the medic this, but he’s shaking too hard to get the words out. He needs to get back on stage.

He tries to fight the medics off. They’re strapping him to something hard, big wide straps across his chest and over his forehead, and he can’t be strapped down now, he can’t let them do this to him. He needs to get up and get back onstage!

“Stop fighting,” the medic tells him firmly. “It’s important that you don’t move. We’re going to take you to hospital.”

“No,” Suho cries weakly. “Chanyeol, don’t let them take me...tell them I’m okay...I can still do it…” but even though he wants to, he really really wants to be able to do it, he somehow understands that willpower might not be enough to get him through this time.

They’ve tied him down and now they’re lifting him up and the world is sailing away from him in swoops of pain, in screams, in flashes of light and darkness. He closes his eyes to get away from it all.

“Stay with me, kid,” the medic repeats. “Junmyeon? Open your eyes…”

***

“El Dorado,” Junmyeon says aloud. Now he remembers. The words bring Tao’s confused, permanently tired-looking face to him.

“El Dorado?” he’d repeated, fumbling with the unfamiliar words as they’d studied the lyrics to their new song. “What is El Dorado?”

“It’s a place,” Junmyeon had explained. “A mythical place.”

“El Dorado,” Yixing’s voice now. The words had come dreamily in his gentle voice, and Junmyeon had seen the dreams reflected in his eyes.

“It sounds magical, right?” He’d smiled at the two Chinese members. “It sounds like a shining city in the middle of a vast desert, or a castle built on a floating rock high among the clouds. The kind of place where it’s always sunrise or sunset, and where the world is always just about to end, or perhaps it’s only just beginning.”

“A place in a story,” said Tao, and Yixing smiled his dreamer’s smile.

Now Junmyeon understands. He doesn’t know what has happened to the others, or why he has ended up in this endless desert all alone. But he knows he has to go to El Dorado.

 _A shining city_. Junmyeon looks around again. There ought to be a shining city. He shades his eyes against the bright, hot sunlight that is somehow failing to warm up his icy body and searches the horizon. And there, between two rolling sand-dunes far, far away, he sees a flash of silver. He stares harder, and sees tiny, distant towers, gleaming domes and spires reaching for the sky. He takes his hand from his eyes. It is so far away he almost despairs of ever reaching it, but he has no choice.

He starts to walk.

***

A thumb gently opens his eye and he sees the face of the medic peering down at him.

“That’s it, good kid. You see me?”

“Yeah…”

“You stay awake now, you hear me?”

He hears the double thump of car doors closing and realizes the ambulance siren he’s been hearing all along had gotten really loud and then stopped, and now there are lights flashing, and cool outside air on his face, which is the only part of him not covered by a rough blanket which tickles at his chin. Despite the blanket, he’s freezing.

“Chanyeol?” he whispers. He rolls his eyes, since his head has been strapped down to stop him moving it, but he can’t see Chanyeol anywhere. Did he go back on stage? That’s good, that’s what he should have done. Suho is relieved, but at the same time, he’s scared. He’s scared and he’s alone, and even though he knows it’s selfish, he wishes Chanyeol was still with him.

He feels movement and hears people talking above him, and then he’s inside a building which he knows is a hospital, and someone is getting in his face, asking him questions in a calm voice, shining a light in his eyes.

“What is your name?”

“Suho,” he whispers. Frowns. No, Suho is for concerts and songs and fanmeets and interviews. He’s not Suho right now. “Junmyeon.”

“Do you know where you are?”

His vision is growing dim. Not dark, though. He has an idea that it should go dark when he closes his eyes, but instead, everything just gets brighter and brighter.

“Gotta find the El Dorado,” he whispers, and is gone.

***

Junmyeon has been walking forever, it seems. The sun is so high and so bright, and the sand is soft and slippery. His feet sink into it, making it hard to walk. The light is so dazzling that it hurts his eyes, and he still doesn’t understand why he isn’t hot. Surely he should be sweating like crazy. He can feel how dry the air is, and the heat radiating from the sand is so strong he feels it burning even through the rubber soles of his sneakers, but somehow he is still cold.

The shining city is a little closer. It’s hard to judge distance through the heat-shimmer of the desert, but the rising spires are definitely clearer, the curve of the domes sharper. He thinks he sees a high wall surrounding the city. How white it is. How it glows. Perhaps it is made of crystal, the same crystal that makes the sand sparkle so.

Suddenly he hears a crack, like a bolt of lightning out of clear sky, and then a booming crash of thunder. He stops walking and spins around. He sees his line of footprints in the sand behind him. They disappear into a massive dark thunderhead boiling up in the white sky behind him. It is purple-black and monstrous, and hovers low over the white sand. He sees a vast rushing shadow cross the desert towards him, and realizes it is the shadow of the storm as it towers higher and higher. It blocks out the sun, and plunges Junmyeon into darkness.

He spins back around and starts to run towards the shining city, his feet sinking into the powdery sand that is no longer glittering. Lightning flashes and cracks, and thunder crashes through him, vibrating in his chest so powerfully he is afraid it will shake him apart. How could a storm come up so quickly? He’s terrified the lightning will strike him. He’s the only upright thing for miles, surely it will strike him. The rising wind howls, whipping his hair into his eyes and dragging at his clothes. He runs faster, panting, slipping in the sand. The storm turns the day as dark as night, but ahead of him, the city still shines. It is not so far now. He can do it. He can get there.

Forked lightning bolts down out of the sky nearby, so close he feels its awesome charge electrify the air. It strikes the sand with a blinding cracking explosion, and every hair on Junmyeon’s body stands up on end. From the place the lightning bolt struck, electricity floods out in all directions. Junmyeon feels the pulse of it push up against the rubber soles of his sneakers, and he gasps to see what has happened beneath his feet.

The lightning has turned all the sandy desert into a vast sea of glass.

***

Chanyeol is wearing his stage clothes, ripped jeans that are rather more rip than jean and a sleeveless white shirt far too thin for the season, and his arms are crossed and hugging himself tightly. He’s staring at a sign that says Emergency Department, and the words are just going into his head over and over. He can’t stop thinking about the way Junmyeon went backwards over the edge of the stage, just out of reach of Chanyeol’s desperately grabbing hands. _Why wasn’t I paying more attention? Why didn’t I see the edge of the stage was so close? How could I let him fall?_

They’d tried to stop him getting in the ambulance, telling him he could come later with the others, but he’d shoved his way in anyway. Junmyeon had looked so scared, he was shaking so hard, and there was no way in hell Chanyeol was letting him go to hospital all on his own. During the ambulance ride Junmyeon had opened his eyes once or twice, but he hadn’t seemed to see Chanyeol, and he hadn’t responded to the questions of the paramedics or to Chanyeol calling his name. The empty look in his hyung’s eyes terrified Chanyeol even more than seeing him fall. Then they’d gotten to the hospital, and Junmyeon had been surrounded by doctors and nurses and rushed away from him.

“Chanyeol?” He turns, body as taut and tense as a violin string. It is one of their managers. He must have followed the ambulance here. Chanyeol tightens even more, expecting to be scolded. He knows he did the wrong thing. He shouldn’t have left the stadium, he should have finished the concert with the others and let the staff take care of Junmyeon - but the manager just runs up to him, his face twisted with worry. He’s holding a baggy sports jacket in his hands, and when he gets to Chanyeol he thrusts it at him.

“Put this on,” he says, and when Chanyeol just stares blankly at the jacket, he takes it and drapes it over his shoulders. Only then does Chanyeol realize he’s shivering. He forces his stiff arms through the jacket sleeves.

“Where is he?” the manager asks.

“In the CT scanner,” Chanyeol says. On some level he is grateful not to be scolded. He doesn’t think he could handle being scolded right now. He feels like he’d shatter into a million pieces, like a glass vase dropped onto a hard floor.

***

Running on glass is weird, but it’s a lot easier than soft sand. The clouds above get darker than ever, and suddenly there are hailstones falling around him, great heavy chunks of ice the size of golf balls. They strike his head and glance off his shoulders and bare arms, bruising and cutting him. He covers his head with his arms and runs on. The hailstones bounce off the glass and crunch beneath his feet.

The crystal wall of the shining city looms above him. He races for the massive gate, high as three buildings, wide as ten. As he approaches, it begins to slowly swing open. The hail comes down harder than ever, and despite his arms trying to protect his head some of the chunks of ice get through. He feels blood trickle through his hair and down his face and neck.

He crosses the threshold of the massive gate, and all of a sudden the storm is gone. The noise is gone. The darkness and hail and lightning is gone, as if someone has thrown a switch and turned it all off.

He is in a white-paved street, and white buildings rise above him. They’ve been carved out of what must be an entire mountain of white stone, windows and doorways and friezes and architraves all polished so mirror-smooth it shines, rising up and up in layers above his head. The sky above is a soft, gentle blue, not the glaring white light of the desert, and it is utterly quiet. He pauses. Listens. Somewhere far, far away, he thinks he hears a faint, golden song.

He follows the sound of the distant song. It draws him up the empty street, between the beautiful white buildings, on and on. After a while he realises that the street is spiraling, leading him upwards and inwards, towards the top of the shining city. All the time the golden melody grows clearer, and it is so beautiful and somehow so familiar that it makes Junmyeon’s chest ache and his eyes grow damp with longing.

After a while he comes to a place where the way is blocked. One of the buildings has fallen down, and a huge pile of rubble fills the street. The obstacle is daunting. Junmyeon stops and regards the white boulders doubtfully, but the golden song is calling him on, and besides, he cannot go back. Where would he go back to?

He starts to climb the rubble. The broken stones slip and slide beneath his hands and feet, but he keeps climbing until he reaches the top. Then he sits down to catch his breath and look around. He sees the shining city spread out far below him, and past the city wall is the desert that was turned to glass. He sees the storm, towering high into the white desert sky. The purple clouds have gone weirdly flat above the crystal wall, like the city is surrounded in an invisible force-field. The glass desert reflects the purple clouds, and lightning flickers and flashes in it. It looks like deep water, like an ocean instead of a desert. There must be thunder, but Junmyeon cannot hear it. He hears only the gentle, distant song, calling him on.

He is about to turn and climb down the other side when a sharp sting in the back of his hand makes him gasp. He looks at his hand and sees a jewel-like glass scorpion sitting on his hand, its tail raised up to strike again. He cries out and flings it off, and it rattles and scuttles away down the rubble. Junmyeon clutches his stinging hand to his chest. He can feel a strange coldness trickling from the puncture wound, creeping up the vein in his arm. Fear strikes him like a gong. It is the scorpion’s poison he can feel creeping through his body.

He staggers to his feet and half-scrambles, half-slides down the pile of rubble. About halfway down he loses his footing and falls, tumbling and bouncing off the chunks of destroyed building until he hits the white flagstones of the street with a thud that drives all the breath out of him.

He lies there for a while, stunned, trying to catch his breath. The iciness of the scorpion’s poison spreads through him. He clutches his hand and shivers. The sky seems to be growing darker, and he is colder than ever. Tears prickle in his eyes and spill over to run down the side of his face. He is so scared. He is so alone.

***

“I need to take you back.”

Chanyeol stares at the manager He can barely make the words make sense. Back? He means - back to the stadium?

“No,” he shakes his head tightly. He is so tense the movement makes his neck hurt. “No. Hyung is hurt, I can’t just leave him here alone -”

“Chanyeol, I know how you feel,” the manager says, “but there’s nothing you can do for him now. The doctors will take care of him. The other kids need you. I can get you back in time for the second half of the concert if we go now.”

Chanyeol doesn’t want to hear this, doesn’t want to listen. The manager reaches for his arm and Chanyeol flinches. He twists away and stares at the door they took Junmyeon through. He needs to be here. He needs to see Junmyeon again, needs to see him open his eyes and smile at Chanyeol and tell him he’s okay, that everything will be okay -

“Junmyeon would want you to go back,” the manager tells him. “You know him. He’d want you to make sure the concert goes well. Think of the fans - they’ll be worried. It will help them to see you back on stage.”

Chanyeol wishes he could close his ears and block it all out, but he knows the truth of the manager’s words. There’s nothing he can do here, and he’s an idol. He’s supposed to act like a professional. It’s his job to keep the show going. He has to do his part, pull his weight, not just leave the others to take up his slack. He can’t be selfish now.

Though it tears him apart inside to do so, he allows himself to be pulled him away.

***

Slowly the sky above turns pink and red and gold. It is sunset, and it is beautiful. Junmyeon lies there and watches until the first twinkling star appears in the deepening sky above him. Then he sits up.

The sensation of poison creeping through his veins seems to have faded, and he can think more clearly. He climbs to his feet and listens. Yes, there is the distant song again. The street is clear ahead of him, rising gently upwards in its spiral pattern. He walks on.

When he finally reaches the top of the city, he finds himself at the edge of a white courtyard. The sky is dark now and filled with stars. There is a strange silver light coming from all around. There is no moon, but it is like the city itself is shining in the night. It is like the city is made of moon.

Rising up from the very centre of the courtyard is a tower. It is made of the same crystal as the city wall, and it is absolutely smooth. It is so tall that when Junmyeon cranes his neck back to try and find the tip of it, he almost gets dizzy. It seems to loom impossibly over him, tapering into a sharp point that brushes the night sky.

He closes his eyes, and the golden song grows a little stronger. It is coming from the tower. He opens his eyes again and sees that a door has appeared within the shining quartz. He walks towards the door. When he gets there, a figure steps smoothly into the doorway. Junmyeon stops. The person is wearing white robes, and a white mask covers his face. He holds a weapon in his hands, a slender metal pole longer than Junmyeon is tall, tipped with a wickedly sharp, gleaming silver blade. He spins the pole so fast the blade blurs, and points it straight at Junmyeon.

“Why are you here?” The words come from behind the mask.

Junmyeon watches the blade nervously. He’s never seen anything that looks so sharp.

“I am going towards the place I have to go,” he says. He’s not quite sure what he means, but the words feel right somehow.

“The further you go, the more danger there is,” the man behind the mask says. His voice is cool and calm.

A shiver chases itself up and down Junmyeon’s arms.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I have to go. I have to go to El Dorado.”

“Ah,” the man says. He looks at Junmyeon from behind his mask. “And yet you are alone?”

At the words, a wave of sadness and loneliness washes over him. He is alone, and it doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t want to be alone. He wants the others. He needs them.

But there is nothing he can do. He does not know where his friends are, and he doesn’t know how to find them. All he can do is keep going on.

He bows his head. “Yes,” he whispers. “I am alone.”

“Then come.” The white-robed man lowers his blade and moves aside, and Junmyeon steps through the doorway and into the crystal tower.

***

Baekhyun doesn’t see it happen. He is on the other side of the stage, looking the other way, leading the fans on the other side of the stadium in the chant. But he does see Jongdae from the corner of his eye. He sees him freeze and his face go horror-struck, and Baekhyun knows immediately that something bad has happened. He spins around and follows Jongdae’s gaze, and finds Chanyeol crouching right at the end of one of the catwalks, looking down. Baekhyun watches him put a hand on the edge and jump off the stage, disappearing immediately from sight. Baekhyun is stunned. Chanyeol jumped off the stage? _Why?_

The answer strikes him like a thunderbolt. Someone must have fallen. He is suddenly filled with panic. He remembers Tao falling through an open stage trapdoor, years ago. Baekhyun had nearly had a heart attack, but thank God, Tao had been okay - but this time Chanyeol has actually jumped off the stage after whoever fell, and that tells Baekhyun that this time, it is bad. Chanyeol wouldn’t leave the stage mid-song if whoever had fallen was okay.

He runs towards Jongdae, and as he does his eyes are darting around the stage, counting members, trying to figure out who is missing. The stage is huge and everyone is moving, dancing, lights are flickering and smoke bursts are going off everywhere. He gets to Jongdae before he’s figured it out. He grabs Jongdae’s arm and opens his mouth, but he doesn’t need to speak - Jongdae has read his question in his eyes. He lowers his microphone and puts his mouth to Baekhyun’s ear.

“Junmyeon-hyung fell,” he says. Baekhyun turns his head to look at him, and Jongdae’s eyes are like ragged holes of fear. That look chills Baekhyun to the core. But despite the terror in his eyes, Jongdae turns away and keeps singing, keeps smiling, keeps the crowd engaged. His professionalism reminds Baekhyun of what he should be doing, and he forces himself to keep performing too.

Neither Chanyeol or Junmyeon reappear. They manage the next few songs, Jongdae taking Junmyeon’s lines while Sehun takes Chanyeol’s. They just leave gaps in the dances, there’s no time or way of solving that. It’s the first time Baekhyun has ever had to force himself to smile during a concert, the first time he’s ever had to pretend to enjoy himself. He loves performing, but tonight he is full of fear, because Chanyeol hasn’t come back, and surely he would come back if Junmyeon was okay.

Chanyeol reappears about half-way through the concert, to screams from the fans. He smiles and waves and launches straight into their next act, but Baekhyun can see how much it’s hurting him to smile. He tries to meet Chanyeol’s eyes. He desperately wants to know what has happened. But he can’t. They simply don’t have a chance. They have to get through the concert, and pretend everything is okay, when it’s not, it’s not at all. That’s what they have to do.

***

It is dark and cool and smooth inside the crystal tower. The only light is coming from the central area ahead of him, where a shaft of pure white light falls straight down from the top of the tower high, high above. It illumines a circular platform, and in the middle of the platform is a raised crystal plinth. Junmyeon closes his eyes and thinks he hears the golden song again. Is it coming from the thing on the plinth?

He looks around, but the white-robed man is gone, and so is the door he came in through, gone as if they’d never existed. He’s alone again. He walks towards the shaft of light and steps onto the round platform. The white light plays over his skin and sets tiny motes of dust in the air dancing like little floating stars. He steps towards the plinth. There is something on it. No, Junmyeon realizes as he steps closer. Not on it - floating above it, as if suspended in some kind of force field. It is a large ring about two hand-spans wide, made of something hard and clear, with many internal facets. The light from above falls through the clear substance and strikes through the prisms into rainbows. Junmyeon looks up, and sees that the top of the tower, high above is open to the sky. As he looks, the light gets brighter and brighter. It should be dazzling, but somehow it doesn’t dazzle Junmyeon. He can keep his eyes open to it without pain.

He looks back at the ring-shaped piece of crystal hovering before him. The song grows stronger and clearer than ever. It is so powerful and so beautiful it brings tears to his eyes.

It is calling him home.

***

They come offstage, hot and sweaty and thirsty and exhausted, but all they can think of is finding out what’s going on. What happened? Where is Junmyeon? Is he okay? They crowd backstage, clustering together, worried faces questioning each other.

“Chanyeol, what happened? Where’s hyung?” Baekhyun cries.

“In hospital. He hit his head,” Chanyeol’s voice cracks, and suddenly he’s crying. Baekhyun wraps his arms around him, fear pulsing through him with every heartbeat.

“But he’s okay? He’s okay, right?”

Chanyeol just shakes his head, tears pouring down his face. He doesn’t know.

***

Junmyeon touches a finger to the crystal ring. All at once there’s a sudden, forceful jolt. The ground lurches beneath his feet, and everything starts to rumble and shake. He cannot keep his feet. He’s thrown to the ground, and he covers his head with his arms as huge chunks of crystal start to rain down, falling from the crumbling tower and smashing around him. Terror fills him. The golden song is gone. What is happening?

The crystal tower shatters and pours down around him like a waterfall, a tidal wave made of tiny cut-glass fragments. It swamps Junmyeon, and he’s tossed and tumbled in it helplessly. The noise is indescribable, all the crystal pieces rubbing against each other and around him. He’s scared they must be cutting his skin to ribbons, and he’s scared to open his mouth or breathe in case he breathes in pieces of crystal. He hears a strange beeping noise, and feels something pressed over his face. It feels weird, and it smells like plastic. He twists and fights against the sea of crystal he’s drowning in. His lungs scream, but he’s too afraid to inhale. He’ll cut his lungs to ribbons if he breathes…

There’s a sudden powerful rush below him, and he’s rolled and tumbled out of the crystal wave like he’s been washed up on the seashore. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, glittering shards raining from his body and out of his hair, and gasps for air.

When he has enough oxygen again, he pushes himself wearily onto his hands and knees and looks around.

He is on an empty stage in an empty stadium. The lights are dim and there is no audience, and the others are not with him. The stage floor beneath his hands and knees is black and scuffed, marked here and there with scraps of coloured tape. He stands up and inspects his arms. Somehow, impossibly, the shards of crystal in the wave have not cut him.

A huge screen at the back of the stage lights up, the size of the side of a building. A moving image flickers onto it, and Junmyeon recognizes it. It’s Chanyeol, red hair styled up like an anime character’s. His face is intense as he raps soundlessly into the camera, but his sparkling eyes betray his joy. With a great, flooding rush as powerful as the crystal wave, Junmyeon remembers. He filmed this. He was filming Chanyeol, walking backwards, and he reached the edge of the stage without realizing, and he fell -

He sees Chanyeol’s face change up on the big screen, sees his expression go suddenly panicked, sees him lunge forward, grab for his hands, miss. The camera catches a whirling blur of colours and darkness, and then goes to white static. Junmyeon stares at the static-filled screen. He spins around, searching for someone, anyone, but the stadium is utterly silent, and there is nobody here but him.

A vast pit of exhaustion opens up inside Junmyeon. He sits down on the stage and draws his knees to his chest, staring up at the static-filled screen in bewilderment. Tears prickle at his eyes. He knows he shouldn’t be here, but he doesn’t know how to get out.

The white static on the screen flickers and shows him something new. He sees an image of a great city, built on a rock that is floating in the sky, drifting among the clouds. He recognizes it immediately. It’s the video that plays behind them when they perform El Dorado.

“El Dorado,” he says. Yes, that is right. He was finding El Dorado. He should have found it when he touched the crystal ring, but instead, he was swept here and washed up on this empty stadium stage.

“This isn’t real,” Junmyeon tells himself. “It’s not real. It can’t be real.”

But it feels so real. He can feel the ground hard beneath him. He can smell the sweat and metal and dust that is such an intrinsic part of the stage.

How does he get out of here?

He thinks about the song. It’s about finding El Dorado, yes, but it’s also about finding it together. They find it because they believe in each other, because they are one.

That’s why Junmyeon can’t get there. He’s been on his own the whole time.

He lifts his head, tears spilling from his eyes.

“Where are you?” he cries, and his voice echoes around the silent, empty stadium and comes back to him.

_Where are you - are you - are you?_

***

Junmyeon lies unmoving on the bed. His head is bandaged, and tubes and wires connect him to monitors and hanging bags that drip fluids into him. His skin is pale, almost translucent, and seems to have collapsed onto the underlying contours of his skull.

Chanyeol doesn’t know how to handle this. It’s been the worst night of his life and he’s so scared. Junmyeon looks like a small, lost child in the hospital bed, not the confident, caring older brother who’s always looked out for him, from long before they debuted. Junmyeon is the one who looks after them all. He’s a sure and stable part of Chanyeol’s life, the one he knows he can always rely on, who will always be there for him no matter what. Now Chanyeol realizes for the first time just how easily a person can be snatched away from him forever. He realizes just how fragile a human life can be.

“He’s not going to die,” he whispers, barely realizing that he speaks aloud. “He’s not.”

“Of course he’s not.” Baekhyun’s arms go round him. “He’s so strong. He’ll find his way back to us.”

They stand silently together at the side of the bed. The others are waiting out in the corridor. They’re not supposed to all go into the hospital room at once. The managers wanted to take them home, didn’t want to deal with the logistics of transporting eight idols to a public hospital without being mobbed, but they’d insisted. This was Junmyeon. Their leader. The one who was always there for them. Now it was their turn to be there for him.

Motion at the door makes Baekhyun look around. He sees Sehun looking in the door, and Jongin clinging to him. He can tell they want to come in, but Baekhyun glances up at Chanyeol’s distraught face and just can’t bear to make him leave. He thinks about the doctor telling them to have only two at a time in the room. But the doctor doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand that they need each other at times like this. They need all of them together, and Junmyeon needs them too.

“Come in,” he says quietly to the two youngest members. They don’t need telling twice. They slip inside and run over to the bed, and as if they’ve just unblocked a dam, the rest come in after them. They’re very quiet, because they know they’ll be kicked out if anyone notices what they’re doing, but when they’re all together everything feels just a tiny bit better.

There is a long silence while they all look at Junmyeon.

“He looks so alone,” Jongdae whispers.

Baekhyun sees it too. There’s something terribly lonely about that pale, still figure, trapped in his unconsciousness, where they cannot reach him.

“No,” Chanyeol shakes his head slowly. “He’s not alone. We’re here,” Chanyeol reaches out tentatively and touches Junmyeon’s hand, the one that doesn’t have a needle and tube taped into the back of it. “We’re with you, hyung.”

“You’re not alone,” Baekhyun tells him, and the others start to murmur agreement, add their words of encouragement.

“It’ll be okay, hyung.”

“We’re with you.”

“We’re here.”

***

Junmyeon looks up from where he’s buried his head in his knees, hands clasped around his shins, a lonely huddled figure in the middle of the silent, empty stage. His face is wet with tears, and so are the knees of his jeans, but he thought he felt something. A shiver in the air. A difference in the silence. Up on the screen, the silent image of El Dorado flickers, then changes. He sees a hospital bed, with a person lying in it, looking unbearably small and fragile among the white sheets with all the tubes and monitors attached to him.

But he is not alone. Junmyeon sees that the hurt person is surrounded by others. They’re talking to him, though he can’t hear them. Their faces are filled with worry and fear. They’re taking it in turns to touch his hand, and he recognizes his own name on their lips as they call him. And then he understands that the hurt person in the bed is himself.

He thought he was alone, but he isn’t. He is surrounded by his friends. They’re all there for him. They’re calling him home.

He doesn’t have to go somewhere after all. El Dorado, that place of dreams and light, isn’t somewhere else, some magical fantasy place. It is here. It is when he is with his friends. His group members. The people he loves.

The vast stadium starts to crack apart around him. Trickles of reality seep through the cracks. Everything starts to shiver, and then it all goes black.

Junmyeon finds himself floating in utter darkness, but it isn’t silent any more. Somewhere far, far above him, he hears familiar voices. He feels warm fingers holding a hand that once belonged to him. He follows the sound of the voices, the calls of his name, and lets them draw him slowly up, up, up, until he lies just beneath the surface.

“I think he moved his hand!”

“Hyung?” The voice calling him is suddenly filled with hope.

“Can you hear us?”

“Are you waking up?”

“Wake up, hyung, please wake up...”

He opens his eyes, and their faces slowly come into focus. They’re all watching him, and he sees in their expressions how scared they have been. He sees how desperately they have been waiting for him. He sees how much they need him.

They need him, and even though everything hurts and he has the worst headache of his life, Junmyeon would rather die than abandon them when they need him.

“I’m here,” he whispers, and at his words smiles break out across their faces, light shining through worry and tears and banishing the shadows of fear. A faint smile rises to his own lips as his eyes go to each of their faces, telling them in reassuring glances what he’s too tired to say in words right now. It is worth everything he ever does if he can chase away those looks of pain and fear just by coming back to them.

“I’m here.”


End file.
